


Bajo El Mismo Sol

by helianskies



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Breakfast, Character Study, Cultural Differences, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Historical References, Languages, Lazy Mornings, M/M, Pardon Santiago's French (Spanish?)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 12:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22850056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helianskies/pseuds/helianskies
Summary: In which two representations of one country find some differences between themselves that they hope won't pull them apart.Or, alternatively: Antonio and Santiago wake up together on their monthly trip away and one of them finds there is a hidden barrier they both need to overcome - and not just linguistically.
Relationships: Spain/Spain (Hetalia)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Bajo El Mismo Sol

Soft lips brushed against the bare, warm skin of his shoulder, a quiet, muffled groan slipping out from behind him as he felt the mattress below them shifting along with his... Other half? He supposed that was the appropriate title in some ways. An arm held him a little tighter, a little closer, and he slowly exhaled as he felt the lips return for a brief moment, pressing to his shoulder blade.  
  
"Good morning," his Other Half greeted in hushed Spanish, snuggling up against his back with a grin probably slapped on his face. Santiago would never say out loud in front of others that it was a grin he could get used to – one he could warm to – but when it was only them, it was different. It always was. _He_ always was. "Sorry if I woke you up at any point... I couldn't get comfortable."  
  
"I've gotten used to the kicking, relax. We all have rough nights," he assured the other, voice quiet and tone just about as flat and neutral as normal. Santiago rolled onto his back to meet his Other Half's gaze; a brow poised. "At least you didn't fucking punch me this time."  
  
His Other Half could only offer up a sheepish smile, cheeks warming in his embarrassment. "That was one time, and I made up for it! I warned you I had nightmares, sometimes. Big, _bad_ nightmares!"  
  
"No kidding."

"But did you sleep okay last night, anyway?" came the question he had been anticipating.  
  
Santiago had to take a moment to think about his response, knowing he always said the same thing (" _Fine_ ," with an averted gaze) and he gave a sigh. His Other Half, in the meantime, took the moment to readjust himself, sliding up to his side and resting his head thereabouts on his shoulder. He was toasty. Cosy. Somehow always warmer than the land they lived on, in spirit as well as physically, and yet Santiago never found it intolerable or unbearable. Others would have grown tired and bored of it by now, but _him_... He felt something that no one else had with his Other Half: understanding. True, pure understanding. Sure, everyone lived under the same sun and yada yada yada, but sometimes it felt as though the world he and Antonio knew was a different one altogether. That they lived under their own sun, their own rules... No one else would _ever_ be able to understand it in the same way they did.  
  
"I slept alright. You can count all the damn bruises you gave me later," he eventually said to the other – in jest, really – but it only made the brunette next to him look on in growing concern.  
  
"I didn't kick you that hard, did I...?" he asked. He had begun to sit up, no doubt prepared to amend his errors in whatever way deemed necessary, but Santiago was quick to push him back down onto the bed – something the other did not like at such a moment. "If I hurt you, at least let me see what I—"  
  
"Calm down, Toni. You do this every time, and every time I have to explain to you I'm just fucking with you." The darker-haired Spaniard (with his traitorous strands of white hair brought about by an unfortunate hereditary case of poliosis) turned his head to look at Antonio, who was giving him a half-offended but half-embarrassed look. "Idiot."  
  
"Well, at least I care," the other Spaniard replied in a mumble, a pout forming on his lips. God, he was a child, Santiago would swear it to anyone. A loveable but stupid child. "I know many people who would love to kick you, and they certainly wouldn't be apologising for it!”  
  
"Ay, thanks for reminding me."  
  
"You're more than welcome."  
  
A silence fell between the pair, mutual and easy. One's arm slipped around the other's shoulders, and the other moved his hand up to gently trace his fingers over the dark lettering etched into the first's skin. He lay a brief kiss on the pretty characters along his collarbone. It was a language Antonio had tried to learn many times, and one he had also shunned several centuries before, but an appreciation for it had grown in him since this special bond between him and the other Spain had come into fruition.

As he thought to himself, Santiago took the brunette’s hand in his to return the favour, quite naturally not wanting to be outdone by the other. His own lips met the skin just further along from Antonio’s wrist. It took him by surprise for a moment, but he didn’t react to it in any obvious way; he just watched on until he could claim his hand back, throwing a polite smile the other’s way – a simple, mellow smile. Antonio only had one tattoo on his own body, compared to Santiago’s well-spread collection, but there was still a strong and unspoken meaning (unspoken to anyone that wasn’t themselves, that is) to the roman numerals the fairer of the two Spaniards had had inked onto his arm however many years before: CDLXXVI, in small lettering, neatly written in a line along his skin.  
  
This gentle touch was one of the few things they shared. In spite of their nation, their history and their culture, they were otherwise indisputably different, not only in appearance and attitude but also in their own personal histories – what had _shaped_ them. To most, they only saw the physical distinctions between the pair, though some other differences were evident when, of the numerous days in each month, the pair would take some off to part from their shared home in Madrid and divide time between sunny strolls along the Ramblas of Barcelona down towards the coast, or quiet afternoons in a café in Sevilla.

You see, Antonio's heart belonged to Gaudí, the Sagrada Familia, _la brisa marina sobre tu piel y los rayos del sol bailando en la arena de Barceloneta, mi hogar, mi corazón_! It also partly belonged to the man from Sevilla, with his rapid but suave castellano, his brutish attitude, his indifference, his _palabrotas_ , his amazing cooking and his sweet, hidden passions...

Santiago, on the other hand, loved the South. Andalucía was his home and his guilty pleasure, and no one would ever be able to take that away from him.

Antonio read the Arabic scripture tattooed intricately over the other's collarbone – the language of the Moors that had once ruled over Al-Andalus – trying to read it aloud to the best of his ability. _Alsalam fi alharb_. It was a poor effort to read the delicate characters, but Santiago knew what he had been trying to say and amended the messy intonation.  
  
"Peace in war," he translated for them both. "Something neither of us have ever found, eh?"  
  
"I always did love the way you spoke Arabic," Antonio mused, ignoring the remark and taking his fingers back to the ink and the neat edge of bone under skin, where they were happy to roam. They both had peace for now, at least, which was something they had to be grateful for. They had to make the most of it whilst it was theirs. "It's such a beautiful language. I wish I had learned it instead of... You know..."  
  
"Instead of purging it."  
  
"Mmm..." Antonio bit his lip and sighed. "There are many things I wish I hadn't done, though. That can't be changed. I pushed them out, and you tried to hold onto them... We were so young..."  
  
"We didn't know any better. You did what you were told, no one can blame you," Santiago said with a shrug. He was trying to make Antonio feel better of course, but it didn't always translate well when his voice was tired and disengaged – he came across as uncaring, really… Still, it was the effort counted, right? "Meanwhile I thought I could hold onto Al-Andalus, protect them all... They taught me a serious lesson when they dragged me back to the capital, forced me to convert, the bastards."  
  
A dry laugh passed his lips but Antonio saw no humour in it. Only sorrow, shame... And even then, it was curious to him that two people who represented the same nation would make such different choices. Follow such different paths. Santiago had devoted much of his adolescence to the Arabs, whilst Antonio had spent it with his nose in holy, Christian scriptures. Talk about a dull upbringing... (It was in those days more than ever that he had missed Rome, his brother, the way things had been so many years before).  
  
"I still admire you for it – for going against the system, against the expectations and standards they set us," Antonio remarked, fingers running gently across the lettering, over and over again, as though through doing it enough times and with enough care, he would be blessed with the ability to read it unaided. "That, and it's quite the charming language. Ours is romantic and passionate, of course, but Arabic is..." He paused and bit his lip as he searched for the right word. " _More_. You know what I mean?"  
  
Santiago hummed, amusement tingling in his throat. "I know exactly what you mean," he said in the 'more' (Moor?) language, which caught Antonio off guard. He saw how he waited for a translation, looking at him as a puppy would look curiously at a new toy, but he never gave it. He simply switched back to castellano. "You are quite the linguist yourself, though. You know every dialect we have here, every regional variation,” he observed. “I only learnt catalán and euskera, and that second one was a fucking nightmare."  
  
"That's why no one learns euskera apart from the Basques," the other Spaniard laughed humbly, bemused. "It has never been easy to understand, but at least it means I can make more friendly conversation in the North, feel that solidarity… I like to feel as though anywhere in Spain could be home if I wanted it to be…"  
  
And that was something more that set them apart, yet a trait Santiago wished he had developed or had been born with so that he, too, could move around their shared nation without feeling like an outsider in any town that didn't belong to his Andalucía. But oh well. It wasn't the end of the world, and it wasn't something he would dwell on. What would be the point? They were both Spain, but _different_ Spains, and he didn't doubt that the other pairs of nations shared similar sorts of inconsistencies. It seemed to be in their nature. It was simply peculiar and inexplicable...  
  
"I'm going to make some breakfast," Antonio said through the silence. "Come down with me?"  
  
Santiago ran his fingers briefly through the other's hair, relaxed, before he (carefully, steadily) pushed him off and away from him, remembering that the affection might make him more clingy. "In a minute, you go first." He knew that clingy meant no food, and he was getting rather hungry. They could return to such things later and he would be sure to smother the other (either with affection or a pillow, only time would tell). "I'll make the coffee in a bit, just wait for me."  
  
There was a small, reluctant grumble that came from the other Spaniard, but he wasn't one to argue, so he got up out of bed with little protest and the ghostly sensation of fingers lingering in his hair. He had always been the morning person out of the two of them, whereas Santiago was the night owl, up until the witching hour most days from his thoughts, or something like that. In truth, he never spoke about it, and Antonio had learned not to ask. He had his own nightmares to deal with; perhaps it was simply the case that Santiago's nightmares never let him sleep in the first place.  
  
Downstairs in the kitchen, Antonio opened the shutters to let in the morning breeze so it could flow through the countryside house. This month, they were staying in Andalucía and for company they only had the hills, the blue sky and each other. It made a nice difference to the rest of the month, when they had to stay in Madrid or otherwise travel to and fro across borders. They had done their years of travelling, for centuries upon centuries. Diplomacy like this, this modern age of stale meetings and idle chat... Well... They had never really gotten used to it, much less taken a liking to it. Not after 1936. (Diplomacy was nothing more than a lie).  
  
For breakfast, Antonio figured something sweet would be best. Yesterday they had had _tostadas_ , which were divine, but he wanted chocolate. Sugar. Even some cinnamon, perhaps. So, he began to search for ingredients to make a small batch of churros, with some fresh fruit on the side. The other one didn't eat much fruit in his diet (" _I just prefer vegetables, fucking hell, are you my mother now?_ ") and it was one of the only ways to make sure he got some in his system. Even sort-of-immortal nations had to look after themselves!  
  
Five minutes later, the strawberries, bananas and grapes were out, washed, sliced and ready to eat, and a pan of oil was heating up on the stove ready for the batter. Churros were one of the few delicacies that both of them could agree Antonio made better, and as he got to work on making the mixture for his signature treat, he began to quietly sing to himself in catalán – the language of his adopted home. It was a language he usually saved for himself, for his private life, his notes, his diaries, his secrets – they were all written in it. He had once panicked, he recalled, and thought that Lovino had gone to the effort to learn catalán to decipher his messages, only for it to turn out that the Italian had merely sought a new language to swear at him and insult him in. Ah, the strange relief he had felt at being called a _cagabandúrries_!

“ _Per què cantes tan tranquil_?” a voice said from behind him, over the island counter and just outside the door. Antonio glanced at Santiago as he came him and tended to his coffee duties, as promised, a small smile on his face at the other’s linguistic efforts. “It’s not like anyone else is going to hear it, and it’s not exactly bad enough to scare the wildlife away.”

“You think I might scare the wildlife away…?” The smile was gone in an instant.

“No, you’re not listening,” Santiago remarked with a light, patient sigh (something he had learnt to develop when dealing with the Other Spain, his Other Half). “I'm saying that you should sing and speak in catalán more often. You praise my Arabic, but that’s because I let you hear it. No one can do the same for you if hide it.”

“I don’t hide it, I just—”

Antonio stopped himself from trying to defend certain choices he had made in the past as well as each day he continued to live. He could speak numerous languages with ease, learnt over the years through dedication and care, but there was something so precious and sensitive about this one in particular - something that had been ingrained in him in his past and that he was yet to fully free himself of. For him, this was simply not the time nor place to discuss such things.

“You’re right,” he stated in the end. “I do praise your Arabic, and other things as well. But right now, _el meu cel_ , I would like you to appreciate my churros rather than anything else. Okay?”

They looked on at each other, a calm clash of bright green and sombre greys, no more words passing their lips in the space between them. This was one more thing on the long, tiresome list that made the pair so different, so opposite: Antonio was more than happy to hand out the admiration, the love, the pride, but he would not take it back in return. It had taken Santiago so many years to learn to compliment people and actually mean it, but when it came to the other Spaniard, the Other Spain, his Other Half... It would take more time and patience for him to learn to climb the invisible wall that had been built, so that he could tear it down brick by brick from the inside with his own hands.

“Okay," Santiago replied with a slow, pensive nod, a hint of a smile lighting up in his eyes. "I think I can manage that."

**Author's Note:**

> Why does this exist? Because Helia has headcanons about her favourite country (and all four personifications, wink wink), and she'll be damned if she never shares them. That, and guilty pleasures. I love Santiago just as much as I love Antonio and they deserve some adventures and such. So who knows? I might just make it happen... Or I might vanish for another six months. There's just no telling what I'll do!
> 
> Either way, I hope you enjoyed this little snippet. Apologies for errors and such, I got bored of re-reading it over and over, and it's getting late.
> 
> To clear up possible queries: in terms of these two gents, I imagine, in this case, it is a romantic relationship built upon the ruins of failed relationships in the past. No one knows Spain better than Spain. They both believe it, and so this is the arrangement they have created. Call it a one-off, just for this piece of work. As for Antonio's beloved catalán... It is simply the remnants of a certain period in time that, perhaps, I will address in a later work. 
> 
> Until then, os digo chao!
> 
> \- Helia


End file.
